Paperboard or cardboard boxes lined with plastic material such as polyethylene or other plastics are well-known and have been widely used for many years for packaging a great variety of products including fresh beef, pork, veal, lamb, cheese and other perishable food products. The plastic liners which may be in the form of pouches or bags may be manually inserted into the rigid box or container and then filled with the desired product. However, there are known devices wherein a plastic bag or pouch is placed on a mandrel which then moves into a box to insert the bag into the box. Since it is necessary to insure that the mouth of the bag or liner is open so that it does not interfere with the filling of the pouch after it is inserted into the box, the pouch mouth is manually folded around the outer perimeter of the upper part of the box.
Folding the open end of the bag around the open upper perimeter of the end of the box manually slows production time in a packaging plant. This is particularly true where the box is large and the liner or pouch cannot be conveniently handled by one person. Accordingly, it is one object of the present invention to provide an apparatus which can handle and insert pouches into bags which normally would not be handled by one person alone.
One representative prior art device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,619,981 which issued on Nov. 16, 1971 to H. A. Burke et al. In the Burke et al patent pouches are moved from stack of flattened pouches along a curvilinear path to a vertical position to be loaded from a chute. Accordingly, another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for moving a pouch from a lay flat horizontal position to a vertical position and open it by a simplified path of motion.
In another prior art disclosure, namely, U.S. Pat. No. 4,083,293 which issued on Apr. 11, 1978 to Ralph S. Goldstein, a pouch inserting means including a pair of cross heads movable with respect to each other is employed. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,522,012 which issued to Rodney C. Nelson on June 11, 1985 a bag inserter machine is disclosed where the leading bag is joined to a bag roll along a perforated line and the leading bag is dispensed from the bag roll. Accordingly, another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus which are an improvement over the apparatus and method disclosed in the aforementioned patents.
Yet another prior art device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,142,453 which issued on Mar. 6, 1979 to Kenneth L. Gidewall. The Gidewall patent discloses an apparatus for inserting a flexible container into a substantially rigid outer container wherein an operator must place a bag on a mandrel which is held there by outwardly movable folder plates. Accordingly, it is another object of the present invention to eliminate as many steps as possible from the process of inserting a bag into a box which have to be performed manually.
The foregoing and other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following summary of the invention, description of the drawings, and detailed description.